


Grace Requires Nothing of Me

by regalgeek



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017), The Worst Witch - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Hecate Hardbroom is repressed, Hecate's confinement, The Hicsqueak is only implied but its kinda there, and extreme perfectionism, so its got that going for it at least, the ending is really happy, there's so much angst, warnings for extreme lack of self-care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 08:59:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19720447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regalgeek/pseuds/regalgeek
Summary: Perfect was an impossible ideal and Hecate knew it. But she would get as close to it as she could possibly manage.Or: Hecate Hardbroom struggles to attain perfect, only to realize she doesn't need to be.





	Grace Requires Nothing of Me

**Author's Note:**

> So, I have always been fascinated by Enneagram typing, and have also always seen Hecate as a Type 1, something which we have in common. After listening to the fantastic song "One" by Sleeping at Last on repeat, a song which happens to be about the Enneagram type, I was inspired to write this piece, about Hecate as an Enneagram 1. As this piece is inspired by the song, and the title comes from it as well, if you're the type of person who likes to read to music, I recommend putting it on.
> 
> For those who aren't familiar with the Enneagram Types, Enneagram 1s are characterized by their strong sense of morality, a strict set of rules, and a tendency towards perfectionism. 
> 
> To quote the Enneagram Institute: "Ones are conscientious and ethical, with a strong sense of right and wrong. They are teachers, crusaders, and advocates for change: always striving to improve things, but afraid of making a mistake. Well-organized, orderly, and fastidious, they try to maintain high standards, but can slip into being critical and perfectionistic. They typically have problems with resentment and impatience. At their Best: wise, discerning, realistic, and noble. Can be morally heroic." 
> 
> Whether or not you are interested in the Enneagram, I hope you enjoy this piece!

If someone was broken, Joy tried to fix it.If she made a mistake, Joy tried her very best to correct it. And surely even a mistake of this magnitude wasn’t impossible to undo. She had shattered the witches code by giving Indigo magic, but she didn’t mind that so much as she minded the fact that she had broken her own, internal, rules. She had hurt her friend, and now, no matter what, she would make things right. It would take time, but she’d find a way. 

As long as she stayed true to her task, as long as she didn’t do anything wrong, she would succeed. 

After all, she _had to_ succeed.

* * *

Everything joy read told her that she had no way to undo the damage her usage of the wishing star had wrought. The damage _she_ wrought. But there had to be a way. The books claiming that it was impossible were lying. They had to be lying. 

She was skilled with potions and spells, but she had to be _better._

Joy could do this.   
If there wasn’t a way, she would make one.

* * *

It was, Joy decided as she sat knee deep in books of potion theory and tomes of transformation spells, a rather cruel joke to call herself Joy when she was feeling anything but joyful. That wasn’t the only reason she had grown to hate her name, of course. Nor the only reason she had decided to change the loathed name in question. 

Joy Hardbroom was a foolish girl whose disregard for any rules but her own led to a tragedy she couldn’t even speak of. An out of control girl whse flaws and failures led to her closest friend being turned to stone. 

Hecate Hardbroom would be better.

* * *

Hecate found herself spending less and less time trying to find a cure for Indigo. She hadn’t meant to put her search aside, of course. But she was far too busy as it was, trying to complete each of her assignments to perfection, trying to keep her emotions under control. Trying to stay away from Pippa, and spending every free moment studying the witch’s code. 

The rules Joy lived by hadn’t been enough. 

The rules Hecate lived by would be.

* * *

Hecate noticed every mistake she made, no matter how small or seemingly trivial. She noticed every ingredient added half a second too late while brewing, every time she let her emotions influence her thinking, and every minor infraction in regards to the rules. 

Perfect was an impossible ideal and Hecate knew it. But she would get as close to it as she could possibly manage. She would work herself to the bone in her efforts if need be. She would improve herself until she could no longer notice couldn’t notice anything she had done wrong.

* * *

She was asked to stay behind by her potions teacher, and she didn’t know why. 

“You wanted to see me, Miss Crisp?” Hecate asked politely. She really respected the woman, and not just because she taught her favorite class. Miss Crisp was fond of the rules and enforcing them, but she was never unkind about it either. Despite her spectacles reflecting the light ominously, and the bun she always wore to keep her hair out of her work, she managed to seem fluid and relaxed.

Somehow her teacher had managed to achieve the discipline Hecate so desperately wanted to achieve for herself, without seeming stiff and rigid. 

“I am...Concerned for you, Joy.” That was, perhaps, the one thing about her potions teacher that Hecate didn’t particularly care for. Her refusal to call her Hecate instead of Joy. 

Hecate looked at her teacher curiously. “Why, Miss Crisp? I’ve tried to make sure my work is always done meticulously-better than it was last year, even.” Surely the mistakes that she kept making weren’t bad enough for her to be kept behind, not when two of her classmates had failed the day’s potion completely.

To her surprise, Miss Crisp sighed. Hecate knew that her teacher rather despised the sound when it came from her pupils, so she was a bit confused by her teacher doing the same thing. Not that she’d let her confusion show, of course. “That is precisely why I’m worried, Joy.” 

At this response, Hecate couldn’t help but show a flicker of surprise. “But why, Miss Crisp?”

“I understand that with you being separated from that nonmagical friend of yours, and your subsequent punishment” at these words, the potions teacher frowned, as if she didn’t agree with the punishment that had been handed down to her, “it is natural for you to be compelled to improve yourself. But you’re going too far, Joy.” 

Hecate didn’t agree with her teacher, but she would at least give her the courtesy of listening to what she had to say. “How so?”

“You’ve got yourself off from your friends, and have shown less and less emotion all year. You spend your free time repeatedly practicing the same potion, even after getting top marks in class.” Miss Crisp listed off. “It is, quite frankly, worrying.” 

“Me and Pippa just aren’t very compatible anymore” Hecate lied. No matter how much either of them changed, they would be just as connected as they had been from the very first day of their friendship. Or, they would have been if Hecate hadn’t purposely forced Pippa away. “And I don’t want my feelings to interfere with my thinking. That’s what got me into this mess in the first place.” 

“Humph” Miss Crisp said in a tone that made it clear that she didn’t believe Hecate. “And your repeated attempts at potions you’ve already completed to a standard better than that of most full-grown witches?” 

“Even if the potions are well made, there are still little mistakes that stop my potions from being perfect” Hecate explained. 

“There’s no such thing as a perfect potion.”

“But I can still try.”

* * *

Anything worth doing should be done right, Hecate decided as she practiced her transference spell yet again. While she always practiced spells many times after getting them right, this one seemed...Different somehow. 

The same instinct and affinity that drove her to try and make her potions perfectly was trying her to learn how to transfer perfectly as well, however much effort she had to expend in order to get there.

* * *

Despite her worries, Miss Crisp was happy to give Hecate private advanced lessons. They worked diligently together, and besides the new, advanced, recipes Hecate learned, she slowly opened herself up emotionally yet again, if only in those lessons. 

Eventually, Miss Crisp challenged Hecate to create her own recipe, instead of learning those created by others. She took up the task with relish, feeling happier than she had since before she had changed her name. 

Finally, she succeeded in creating a recipe of her very own, a potion that acted as a cure to hairballs for familiars plagued by them, inspired by Morgana’s recent plight. 

It wasn’t perfect, but somehow Hecate managed to feel pride all the same.

* * *

Her success in creating a recipe of her own made Hecate feel...Lighter in a way. Happier. And she allowed herself to lower just a few of her walls, almost by accident. Her happiness didn’t last long, however.

The potion, which had been quickly shared with the other girls, was accused of making another student’s cat sick, as they had come down with their illness shortly after taking it. 

Accused by her distraught classmate of poisoning their cat, Hecate fled by to her room. Even after learning that the potion had nothing to do with the sick cat, Hecate couldn’t help but worry. She should have done more testing, she should have researched her ingredients more thoroughly. Because, what if she had done something wrong? What then?

* * *

Almost completely alone within the school grounds, only those few teachers who stayed at the castle over break remaining, and, for the most part, giving her a wide berth, Hecate dared to visit the statue who had been Indigo Moon. It was selfish, she knew, not telling anyone and keeping her crime in the dark. But Hecate couldn’t bear it if she was parted from Indigo. Or if it was decided that the risk she presented, even as a statue, was too great.

So the fate of her friend would remain a secret. Hecate would keep the burden of her guilt to herself, never to see the light of day again. 

Indigo’s fate would remind her of why the rules were so important, and why she needed to improve herself. 

Maybe one day she would see Indigo alive and smiling again. 

Maybe one day she would be forgiven.

Maybe one day she would forgive herself.

* * *

After she graduated, Hecate worked with Miss Crisp and did correspondence classes for her certification in potions. Though she had not seen her parents since she had been confined to the school, they still deigned to hire a tutor to help her achieve her certificate.   
From the very first day, MIstress Broomhead picked out every single flaw in every single thing she did. Mistakes even Hecate and her ever-critical eye didn’t see. 

Even after she was gone and Hecate was certified, she found herself picking out those same flaws that she had once not noticed.

* * *

Hecate found herself unable to sleep, kept awake by her unchecked emotions. She had trouble eating, her stomach seemingly already full with the anger she didn’t dare let out, with the regret that was continually eating her from the inside, with the tears she didn’t dare shed, and the parts of her she had shoved down so deep they were almost forgotten.

Miss Crisp expressed her concern, but she was growing distant, more and more occupied by her own work, which made it easy for Hecate to hide her internal turmoil from the usually sharp woman. 

Hecate too energy potions as a substitute for food and rest, and tried to pretend that she wasn’t getting increasingly more irritable, and critical, and harsh.

Joy Hardbroom would have hated her.   
Perhaps Hecate hated herself as well.

* * *

Miss Crisp was demoted from her position as Mrs. Cackle’s deputy headmistress, though, if anything, she seemed happy about that fact. The new deputy, Miss Ada Cackle, seemed like a very kind person, where her mother was strict and unyielding, Ada was soft and willing to adjust when necessary. 

That wasn’t to say that Ada was weak or easy to push around, of course. She was just as strong as her mother, just without being harsh.

Hecate admired her, in a way, and that summer, that admiration only grew. 

Miss Crisp had just retired, and Mrs. Cackle wanted to start the search for a replacement right away. It was Ada who proposed allowing Hecate to teach. As she stood there in the office, watching the mother-daughter pair argue, Hecate couldn’t help but feel honored that anyone, especially someone like Ada, would fight for her in such a way.

“She has all of her qualifications! And what is she supposed to do, spending her whole life in a school if not teach?” Ada asked her mother, somehow managing to sound both fierce and soft-spoken. 

“She’s here because she broke one of the core tenets of the witches’ code so badly she risked the safety of our world!” Mrs. Cackle’s response was angry, and her tone left no room for any dispute. 

Her daughter disputed it anyway. “She was only a child!” 

“You’ve always been one to fight for lost causes Ada” the headmistress replied coldly. Hecate didn’t know what her words were in reference to, but it was clear that they were some sort of personal dig. 

Whatever they were in reference to, the barb hit its mark, based on Ada’s hurt expression. Hecate needed to cut off this argument before it got even worse. 

As it happened, Hecate _had_ thought about potentially being able to teach one day, and she rather liked the idea of being able to share her knowledge with the next generation and trying to instill a strong regard for the witches’ code in them as well. It seemed like the best way to try and help better their society that she had open to her. 

“With all due respect, Mrs. Cackle, Miss Cackle” Hecate said, inclining her head deferentially at each of them in turn, “I acknowledge my past infractions, and that my punishment was just, however I also believe that it is _because_ of those infractions that I would be a good teacher.” Mrs. Cackle scowled, and looked like she was about to interject, so Hecate quickly finished speaking. “Who better than someone who has made such mistakes and understands the motives behind them to nip them in the bud?”

Mrs. Cackle’s face softened marginally. “I will consider it.” 

Seeing as her considerations resulted in Hecate getting the job, she wasn’t about to complain.

* * *

With Ada staying at the school that summer, the pair of them began a tentative friendship, spending their free afternoons together. While Hecate usually preferred to practice her brewing alone, she found that she didn’t mind Ada’s company as she worked. 

On one such occasion in the potions lab, Hecate accidentally ground her ‘acorns found buried beneath the earth’ a bit too finely. It was a miniscule difference, but it made Hecate frown and move to get some new acorns in order to do her task perfectly. Ada, seeing this, moved to look at the ground acorns. “These look fine to me” she noted, peering at them closely. 

“I ground them too finely for this particular recipe” Hecate explained stiffly, not enjoying admitting her failures out loud. 

“Enough for it to affect the potency of the end result?” Ada asked curiously. Hecate knew that Ada, while skilled in potions, wasn’t an expert in the field. Her specialty was spell science. 

“Well, no” Hecate admitted. “And I didn’t grind them so fine that I’ll have to worry about there being slightly more steam either.” 

“If it doesn’t make any difference, why not just use them?”

“The potion won’t be perfect if I use these.” 

“Does it need to be?”

* * *

Hecate was moving her things from her room to her new room, which had once belonged to Miss Crisp, and was much larger as well. She didn’t think she even had enough possessions to fill the space. 

Despite her relative lack of possessions, Ada insisted on helping out. Really, she wasn’t sure why someone like Ada, whose kind and friendly nature made her very well-liked, continued to bother with someone like her. 

Bitter. Moody. Critical. Irritable. Strict. Harsh. Unfeeling. She knew she wasn’t easy to get along with or a particularly pleasant person. She had started to become the way she was now in order to push others away, after all. 

After her foolish and irreversible mistake, after she had condemned Indigo to an eternity as a stone statue, something inside her had broke. She, unable to ask for any sort of aid, tried to piece herself back together, but her attempt was an imperfect one and she was left with jagged pieces threatening to cut anyone who got too close.

She had pursued perfection and followed every rule to the very letter, and it cost her everything. 

But she had to be good, and she had to try for perfect, because even if they were alone, at least perfect people didn’t turn their friends to stone. 

Ada started to direct the boxes around Hecate’s new room, and she allowed herself a small smile.

* * *

It was her first year as a teacher and Hecate was already well aware of the fact that her students hated her. She was a harsh grader, and didn’t mind having her evenings occupied by detentions with misbehaving pupils. 

She patrolled the halls even late at night, her insomnia prohibiting her from sleeping anyways, she decided that she might as well make herself useful. 

She used her mastery of the transference spell and skill with turning herself invisible to stalk the halls, so nobody was ever quite certain where she was. 

Her students hated her, but at least she was doing everything she could to make sure they followed the rules.

* * *

Hecate was used to tension headaches, but she usually managed to stave them off with a special kind of pain potion she had developed especially for them. Except, the potion wasn’t working. Quickly, she calculated how often she had been taking them as of late. 

Upon doing so, she came to the conclusion that she had been overusing them as of late, and her body had grown enough of a tolerance that they were unlikely to be useful for at least a month. 

While she would almost certainly be able to teach through most of her headaches, this particular one was one of the most severe that she was able to remember. She could barely hear herself think, much less actually teach. 

She was always loathe to take any time off, for any reason, but was especially reluctant to take a break and rest today. This was only the first month of Ada’s first year as headmistress, and Hecate would hate to force the stress of finding a supply teacher on such short notice on her. 

With her mind made up, Hecate quickly started getting herself ready, doing her already painful scalp no favors as she put her hair up into its normal tight bun, with no concessions to her pain. 

Once she was finally satisfied with her appearance she transferred herself straight to the dining hall, taking her seat next to Ada slowly and trying to tune out the sound of talking students. Normally, with how loud they were being, Hecate would have put a stop to itt, but she was in no state to do so. Better to conserve her strength in order to administer the year two’s potion tests later.

The very thought of eating was nauseating, and so Hecate contented herself with a glass of water, something Ada was quick to notice. “Are you feeling okay, Hecate?”

“Fine. I simply find myself without an appetite this morning” Hecate replied stiffly, taking a sip of water as if it would somehow appease Ada. 

Ada frowned, but nodded her assent all the same. “Let me know if that changes. Its better for you to take a day off to recoup yourself than miss a week because you stubbornly tried to teach while coming down with something.” 

Hecate nodded, and felt the pain worsen as she did so, wincing slightly at the sudden increase. Unfortunately for Hecate, Ada noticed her slip. “Hecate” Ada said, her tone of voice making what she wanted quite clear. 

“I do have a small headache” Hecate admitted, trying to downplay the severity of said headache. 

“A _small_ headache wouldn’t stop you from getting up and quieting the girls” Ada pointed out. And, rather unfortunately, Hecate didn’t have a rebuttal for that particular point. 

So, instead, she focused on the important part. “I am well enough to teach.”

“And I want you to _stay_ well enough to teach. So, you are going to take the day off and rest” Hecate was about to start protesting, but Ada cut her off. “I will cover your classes today.” 

And now her inability to handle something as simple as a headache was making more work for Ada. She couldn’t help but feel just a bit guilty about that. 

As if reading her mind, Ada told her “we all need a break at some point, and you’ve lasted longer than most. Besides, I’ve missed teaching classes.”

* * *

It was hard for Hecate to express herself, because she was afraid of what would happen if she did. It was better to repress, to accept being seen as emotionless, than to let the opposite happen and lose control.

Beneath what was but a thin facade of composure and control was a cauldron filled to the brim with her passions that she desperately tried to keep well contained. 

And now, with the reintroduction of Pippa into her life, the cauldron was overflowing, and so she had no choice but to loosen her grip. 

Somehow, loosening her control, even a little, made everything more special and real. Those moments that already made her happy had their effect somehow magnified now that she didn’t have to expend as much energy worrying about slipping up.

* * *

After finally telling Ada the truth about what happened to Indigo Moon, Hecate didn’t know what she expected. Scorn, perhaps. Judgement, certainly. Even though she knew that neither of those reactions would be even remotely in-character for Ada, she couldn’t help but brace herself all the same.

She’d been hiding her greatest crime for a very long time. Sure, she had considered telling Ada more than once, and had contemplated telling Pippa the real reason why she didn’t leave the school to see Pippa, and instead had to wait for her to come to her. (It would, of course, have to be the whole story in order to hopefully prevent the woman Hecate loved from flying off the handle at Hecate’s best friend.) 

She never had been able to tell either of them the truth, however, had never been able to let either of them see just how defective she really was. 

Hecate knew that her strict adherence to the Witch’s Code made things difficult, but now Ada, at least, would see exactly the damage she would do without the rules there to keep her contained. 

Instead, Ada said, her voice soft, “so that’s why you always refused to let me lift the confinement spell.” Indeed, the subject of that spell had been a point of contention since the day Ada became headmistress. She wanted to remove it, and Hecate rather stubbornly refused on every occasion. The first several times she went so far as to transfer herself away when it seemed as if Ada was going to ignore her protests. 

Not quite sure what else to say, Hecate just nodded her head, and said “yes.” 

“Are you doing okay? Well, of course you aren’t doing okay, but, having to share that story after keeping it bottled up for 30 years...And the similar incident with Julie Hubble...It must have upset you.” 

While it certainly did upset her, Hecate wasn’t about to admit it. Instead, she tried to focus the attention back on why she had finally told Ada the truth. “So, in light of the fact that Mildred Hubble is not the first student to make such a grievous error, would you be willing to reconsider her expulsion?” 

After getting an affirmative answer from Ada, Hecate thought back on Ada’s response to learning the truth, sparking an epiphany in her mind.

Ada didn’t care about her mistake with Indigo.  
Pippa was willing to forgive being pushed away for 30 years. 

For the people she cared about, she already was good enough.

She was loved for her flaws, not in spite of them.


End file.
